Four Against One
by Alyssa86InMN
Summary: Kate helps out Lanie with her niece's slumber party, only to get pranked by the girls.
**A/N: I received this prompt on Tumblr where Kate gets continuously pranked by a group of kids. I finally got down to writing it. Be on the look out for a multi-chapter AU fic about Caskett in a library (since I work in one) fairly soon.**

Leave it to Lanie to rope her into helping out at her niece's slumber party. Lanie hadn't planned on being involved in the party herself, but when Lydia, her sister-in-law, called in urgent need of childcare to attend her cousin's funeral in Indiana, Lanie couldn't let Nadia's first slumber party for her eighth birthday fall through. Nadia never knew Lydia's cousin, so to her mother it seemed unnecessary to drag her along. Lanie knew how to throw a party though, even if it was a bunch of seven and eight year old girls, she just needed a partner in crime, her best friend Kate Beckett.

Five o'clock on one of her rare Fridays off, Kate stood in front of Gregory and Lydia Parish's Upper East Side apartment. She could hear Lanie's animated voice through the door followed by the sweet and boisterous laughter of a little girl, assumingly Nadia. She knocked on the door and heard the trampling feet of the pair inside.

"Kate! You came! I was worried I'd be left stranded trying to entertain a bunch of third graders on my own."

"Well, what did you expect me to do? You threatened to reveal my deepest, darkest secrets to my husband. I can't let that happen."

"Oh like Castle doesn't already know everything." Lanie smirked. "Come in! You can help us with the food before the girls get here around six."

As the time approached six, Kate pulled two sheets of cookies from the oven while Lanie and Nadia put out dozens of bottles of nail polish and manicuring tools. A knock at the door sent Nadia racing to answer it. If Kate didn't already know that Nadia's friends were coming over, the delighted squealing from the entrance would have given it away.

By quarter past six, all the girls who were invited had arrived. Among the four girls, one of them Kate actually knew besides Nadia. As Kate moved the cookies to a plate to be eaten later, a little girl with dark blonde hair tied back with a ribbon, cherubic hazel eyes and an inquisitive stare approached her.

"You're Mr. Castle's friend, aren't you?"

Kate stopped what she was doing and smiled, "yeah, I'm actually his wife now. And you're Emily from Ms. Ruiz's class, right?"

"Yes. Is Mr. Castle here?"

"No, I'm afraid not. He's at home doing some work."

The corner of Emily's mouth pinched as she eyed Kate skeptically before turning back to her friends.

Kate shrugged at the girl's departure and continued her work in the kitchen setting out all of the food for everyone to devour.

Lanie turned on a Disney movie while the girls pigged out on their feast of pizza. Once the girls got their fill, Nadia wanted to do pedicures, so the four of them rummaged through the colors of nail polish while Kate and Lanie cleaned up.

The ringing of Lanie's phone had her grabbing it and answering in another room. Kate waited for her friend and a few minutes later, Lanie came back in a huff saying Esposito had an emergency and needed her.

"I'm so sorry to do this to you, Kate, but do you think you could watch these four for an hour or two until I get back?"

Kate stuttered out a response and it wasn't until Lanie thanked her and was rushing out the door that she realized she agreed to watch over the party.

Kate's heart quickened at the realization of being left alone with a group of kids. If only her husband were here, he'd know exactly what to do. If only Esposito didn't have an "emergency" while Lanie was in charge of a girl's party. Kate breathed in deep. She faced down hardened criminals, murders, evil people every day, surely she could not let her fear of a pack of third graders be obvious. They were like wolves though, they sensed fear.

"Hey girls, did you want to finish up our pedicures and then we can watch another movie?" Kate announced, trying to sound enthusiastic.

"Can we do ice cream sundaes instead?!" the brunette named Gianna exclaimed.

"I don't know about that…" Kate hesitated.

"Please Kate, please!" Nadia clasped her hands together and pleaded.

"Okay, I guess it will be fine if we do it a little early. Lanie is going to be disappointed she missed out though."

While Nadia, Emily and Gianna congregated around the kitchen table, Muna, Nadia's quietest friend, asked Kate if she needed any help bringing out any of the ice cream supplies. Kate smiled and was grateful to have such a polite girl in the group.

Kate went back to the refrigerator for the pails of ice cream after putting out the toppings and could hear the girls using the canned whipped cream.

"Hey girls, don't make a mess with that stuff!" Kate called out. The girls tittered. "Okay, here's the ice cream!" Kate announced, as she pulled out a chair and plopped into it. White goo spurted out from beneath her as three of the girls burst into laughter. The squishy, wet feeling on the back of her slacks was the least of her worries considering she wasn't planning on spending the night and didn't bring a change of clothes. Hopefully the pajamas Lanie brought wouldn't look too ridiculous on her until her pants got washed.

Kate sighed and held back the anger she wanted to express. "Very funny you guys. I'm going to go change and if I find an even bigger mess when I get back, you are not going to like what happens."

Running into the nearby bathroom, Kate quickly assessed the damage. To her horror, not only had the girls put whipped cream on the chair, they added chocolate syrup, which stained both her pants and underwear. Leaning against the bathroom sink, she tried to come up with a way to fix her clothing problems. Her panties didn't look too bad and she could get away with a little spot cleaning, even if it did look like she had an accident in them, her pants were another story.

Sneaking out of the bathroom and down the hall to the laundry room without her pants was risky, but she managed to do it without arousing suspicion. Lanie's bag was in the next room over and it wouldn't be too hard to get to it. Kate just wanted to get her pants taken care of as quickly as possible. Using some spot cleaner, she scrubbed the back of her pants before she tossed them in the washing machine. Stepping away from the machine Kate realized in her hurry to get things done quickly, she spilled some detergent on the floor. Grunting in frustration, she bent over and wiped up all of the blue liquid she could find. The distinct sound of a camera click had her turning toward the door where Emily held Kate's phone as she snapped pictures of the older woman kneeling on the tile with her stained underwear on display for the entire party. Nadia and Gianna stood behind the smirking Emily as they giggled about Kate's compromising position.

"All right girls, you've had your fun, now please give me my phone back."

"Not before we send these pictures to Mr. Castle." Emily gloated, turning on her heel and running back to the kitchen.

Castle was never going to let her live this down. His wife couldn't handle a few little girls and that was fodder enough for at least two weeks of teasing, now with physical evidence getting sent to him that increased the teasing by at least one month.

Kate rushed into the nearby bedroom, grabbed Lanie's pants and slipped them on before racing back to the kitchen. Nadia, Emily and Gianna sat around each other as they messed around with Kate's phone. Muna, Kate's helpful buddy, sat across from them looking uncomfortable at the idea of her friends pranking their caregiver.

"How about we watch that movie now? That shouldn't cause you guys to get into any hijinks." Kate snatched her phone from Gianna's hands, startling the trio who didn't realize Kate was behind them.

The girls gathered around the big screen TV on their sleeping bags. Kate dropped into an armchair, checking for any suspicious substances beforehand and turned on Frozen. As the movie played, Kate texted Castle, seeing that the girls did in fact send those pictures to him.

 _You might need to come rescue me at some point, so don't go to bed early or anything._

 _Can't handle a few grade school girls, Beckett?_

 _I think I'd rather deal with a team of trained assassins._

 _You'll be fine, but I'll be waiting to rescue you if need be. Love you._

As Anna searched for her sister, Elsa on screen, Kate's eyes fluttered shut from exhaustion and she fell asleep.

Snuffling awake, what felt like a few minutes, later, Kate tried to bring her hand to wipe away the sleep from her eyes, but discovered her arms were restrained to the chair with purple jump ropes. Awakening fully, Kate searched in panic around the room, looking for the girls, but when she realized that not only were her arms restrained with rope, her upper body was stuck to the back of the chair with what had to be an entire roll of saran wrap.

A knock at the door had a stampede of socked feet running to answer it.

"Girls, don't open the door, you don't know who it is!" Kate shouted.

A muffled voice from the opposite side of the door said, "Beckett it's Castle!"

Relief rushed through her body, knowing her husband truly had come to rescue her.

"Hello girls, I saw in the pictures you sent me that you have captured my wife and being the knight in shining armor that I am, I had to come rescue her." Castle greeted when the girls let him in. "Hey sweetie, how are you doing?"

"Oh I'm just peachy, Rick." Kate said tersely. "Can you get me out of this?"

"Of course!" Castle grabbed a pair of scissors and cut through Kate's restraints and untied the jump ropes from her arms. "And the knight rescues his princess from the evil step sisters and carries her off to the castle!" Castle narrated, holding his audience captive with the real life fairy tale.

When the commotion settled, Castle instructed the girls to get ready for bed before Lanie got back. Kate was surprised when they all did as they were told, wishing they would have done that for her.

Kate laid across the couch cushion in defeat and Castle joined her.

"Kind of makes you reconsider us having our own kid doesn't it?" he asked with a smirk.

"Well it's too late to reconsider it now, Castle. The deed is done." Kate murmured.

"Wait, what?" Castle asked, his heart quickening at what he thought his wife was saying.

Kate wiped away a tear, "I don't know if I can do it now, Rick, but it's already coming." Kate rested her hands on her flat belly.

"You're saying you're pregnant?" Castle asked, his eyes wide in awe.

"Yes and I can't handle four 8 year old girls, how am I going to be able to take care of an infant?"

Castle drew Kate into a hug. "Oh sweetie, it'll be just fine. You and I are a team and our little guy or girl is going to adore you just as much as I do. You can't expect one night with some little girls to be indicative of you as a parent. Trust me. You are going to be a wonderful mother."

"I hope so."

"Let's get these girls settled and we can go watch something in the den until Lanie gets back." Castle said. "And I promise I won't tie you up if you fall asleep on me."

Kate glared at her husband and he smiled wickedly in a response that made her laugh.

 **Tumblr: MonaLyssa33**  
 **Twitter: AlyssaWriting**


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